Pastures New (35 page)

‘You’re not the only one who’s lost someone, Amy,’ said Ben, the anger resurfacing. ‘You don’t have the monopoly on grief.’

‘I never said I did,’ Amy was stung to respond. ‘But you’ve never lost someone you love. You can’t know what it’s like.’

‘Haven’t I?’ Ben spat out. ‘How do you know I haven’t?’

‘You never said – I just assumed –’

‘Well don’t!’ said Ben. ‘Don’t assume things you have no idea about.’

‘Who – what happened?’

Ben put his head in his hands and looked up at her, and Amy saw, in his eyes, a mirror of her own pain.

‘I had a sister, once,’ said Ben, very slowly. ‘Her name was Sarah and she was three years younger than me. When she was born I thought she was the loveliest thing I had ever seen. We used to muck about together – you know, how kids do. And sometimes she was my annoying little sister. But I loved her. And I looked out
for her, and she looked up to me. And then –’ His voice cracked, and Amy heard the raw, naked pain. She had never seen Ben like this.

‘How did she die?’

‘She drowned. She was five years old, and I was eight. And she drowned. And I couldn’t save her.’

‘Oh Ben.’ Amy came and knelt in the mud with him, and held him close to her, as the rain beat down upon them. She could feel his heart thumping next to hers. ‘You were only a child, it wasn’t your fault.’

‘But you don’t understand,’ Ben whispered. ‘I was meant to look after her. I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her.’

‘What happened?’

‘We’d gone for a family picnic in the park, and she wanted to come fishing for newts with me. But I wanted to play with my friends so I told her to go away. But she followed me anyway. And then –’ He took a deep breath.

‘Then –?’ Amy prompted gently.

‘Then, I felt bad about leaving her behind, so I went to look for her. But she wasn’t where I left her. So I went back to the pond, and there she was – floating in it. I jumped in and tried to get her out, but I couldn’t reach her, and I got tangled in the pond weed. And then my dad was there, shouting at me, and pulling Sarah out and doing mouth-to-mouth. While I sat there watching her die, knowing it was all my fault. And my parents never knew.’

‘Do they know now?’

‘I can’t tell them that,’ said Ben. ‘How do you think they’d feel knowing I killed their daughter?’

‘Ben, it was an accident, surely they’d see that.’

‘Maybe,’ said Ben, ‘but I’ve never found the courage.’

There was a silence, the only sound the pounding of the rain on Harry’s shed roof. Then Ben stood up, still holding on to Amy.

‘So you see, I know all about pain and suffering and loss. And I still carry on. The reason I’m a doctor is because of Sarah. It’s my fault she died, and I couldn’t save her, but I can try to save others. And though I live with the pain every day of my life, I still would choose to live my life to the full, and risk being hurt again. You have to choose life, Amy. To do anything else is to condemn yourself to the dark and a life that’s only half-lived. You have to choose to live, Amy. Please.’

Amy stood torn between what he had said: her heart caught by the pleading in his voice, and her fear of allowing herself to love again. Slowly she pulled herself away from him.

‘I’m sorry, Ben, I want to, but I just can’t.’ Her voice was a strangled whisper. She thrust the ring back in his hand. He snatched it from her, and threw it into the middle of Harry’s allotment.

‘Don’t,’ said Amy.

‘Why not?’ snarled Ben, his face suffused with the anger and hurt she had put there. Not knowing what else to do, Amy stumbled away, tears pouring down her face. The rain was coming down now in fast and sharp needles, and the wind was whipping across the allotments.

The wind howled even louder, and the rain came down harder. Letting out a great howl of rage, Ben
punched his fist into the side of Harry’s shed. Harry was gone. And now, so was Amy. And he doubted he was ever going to get her back. He’d lost her, and this time it was for good.

Saffron rolled over in bed, and woke up with a start. Pete still wasn’t there. That meant he hadn’t come home last night. By the time she had come in from the allotments the previous day, everyone had been leaving, and shortly after he had gone to the pub. She had assumed he would be back later, but then Amy had come in from the allotments, soaking wet and in a terrible state.

‘What happened?’ Saffron had been shocked at the state of her friend, who was pale and sodden.

‘I’ve made such a mess of things,’ Amy had told her, and collapsed sobbing into Saffron’s arms.

‘Don’t you think you both need to calm down a bit?’ said Saffron, once Amy had filled her in on Ben’s proposal. ‘I told Ben today wasn’t a good day to propose –’ Amy shot her a startled glance, and Saffron shrugged her shoulders ‘– the poor lamb was excited, he had to tell someone. I did try to warn him off, but by the time I got out there it was too late.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Amy. ‘I would still have said no.’

‘Don’t you think you’ll change your mind in a few months? Things might not seem so bad then?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Amy, wearily. ‘I can’t see it at the moment. I don’t think it’s fair to string Ben along, do you?’

‘No, I don’t suppose so,’ Saffron replied. She’d sighed, and thought about Pete and how she would feel if she lost him. Then she’d shivered. Suddenly it seemed much more likely that’s what would happen.

‘Where’s Pete, by the way?’ Amy asked, as if reading Saffron’s mind.

‘Pub,’ Saffron replied, and then to her horror she burst into tears.

‘Oh God,’ said Amy, ‘just look at us. We’re a right pair, aren’t we?’

‘Sorry,’ sniffed Saffron, ‘it’s been a long day, and it feels like I’m losing Pete, and I just don’t know what to do.’

Ben had got back to his darkened house immediately from the debacle at the allotment. He couldn’t face going to Saffron’s for the rest of the wake. In fact, he wasn’t sure he could even face living round here any more. Not without Amy. Not without Harry to put him right about life, the universe and everything. Perhaps it was time to move on.

Meg came up, wagging her tail and licking him all over enthusiastically.

‘Down, girl,’ he said, giving her a hug. At least he
still had a dog who loved him. He went into the kitchen and got some dog food out to feed her. He stared across the darkening allotments, where the storm was still raging in full swing. Amy was out there somewhere, and she was lost to him. There was no way he could continue living so close and not being with her. It was too much to bear. On Monday he would start making enquiries about working at other surgeries.

He turned on the radio – a Coldplay concert was in progress. Great, just miserable enough for his mood. He poured himself a can of beer, intending to sit there and wallow in his misery. And then a song came on with lyrics that were so painfully, unbearably close to the way he felt that he could stand it no longer. He had wanted to fix her, he had wanted to make things better, but he had left her standing in the rain, tears streaming down her face, unable to help.

This was no sodding good at all. He switched off the radio, patted Meg on the head, and headed for the Magpie. Drowning his sorrows looked like the only option he had.

It was gone nine p.m. and the pub was heaving by the time he got there. Ben realised to his surprise it was gone nine o’clock. Where had the last few hours gone? He was in such a blur of misery he had lost half an evening.

He jostled his way to the bar and eventually got served by a pretty young barmaid. A pretty young
barmaid who wasn’t Amy. It was no good pretending he could get over her and look at other women, because he didn’t want other women. He just wanted Amy. He sipped his beer, scanning the pub for anyone he knew, and then spotted Pete in the corner with a group of the allotmenteers. Pete seemed well plastered. Ben frowned. Pete had presumably carried on drinking because of the funeral, but it was unusual for him to be out this late on a Friday.

‘Hi,’ said Ben, wandering over to them. After a general chat about Harry and how much he would be missed, Ben squeezed in next to Pete. ‘Managed to wangle a late-night pass from Saffron then?’ he asked.

‘I do what I want,’ said Pete defiantly. ‘I’m not tied to her apron strings.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting you were,’ said Ben, rather taken aback with the aggressiveness of the response. He and Pete had been mates for years, and he’d never seen him like this.

‘Well, good,’ said Pete, with a drunkenly determined growl.

‘I don’t mean to pry, but is everything okay?’ Ben asked.

‘I need another pint.’ Pete didn’t appear to have heard the question.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

‘If I want a pint I’ll bloody well have one!’

‘Woah!’ Ben held his hands up. ‘Here, let me get it for you.’ It was so busy at the bar he had visions of Pete spilling it over half the punters in the pub, and in the mood he was in, Ben could see things turning ugly.

‘I’ve a good mind to go round to Gerry’s right now,’ Pete announced abruptly when Ben got back.

‘You don’t know where he lives,’ said Ben.

‘I do,’ said Pete, ‘he’s staying at the motel on the other side of town.’

‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’

‘I shall march right up there and have it out with him,’ said Pete. ‘In fact, I think I will challenge him to a duel. Fancy being my second?’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Ben. ‘You know, there is an easy way to sort this out.’

‘How’s that?’ Pete asked.

‘You could talk to Saffron.’

‘So she can lie to me again?’ asked Pete. ‘No thanks.’

‘Pete!’ Ben was exasperated. ‘There may be a perfectly simple explanation for all this. From what I’ve seen, Saffron can barely give Gerry the time of day. Maybe he pounced on her and she fought him off?’

‘I know what I saw,’ said Pete sulkily, lifting his pint to his lips. He missed and half of his pint ended up on the table, the floor and over his shirt.

‘Come on, let’s get you home,’ said Ben.

‘I’m not going home,’ Pete replied moodily. ‘I want another drink.’

‘And I think you’ve had enough, mate,’ said Ben.

‘Don’t tell me when I’ve had enough.’ Pete lurched off his chair, and swung a drunken punch at Ben. He missed but tottered forwards, hit the bar, and slid slowly down to the floor.

‘You’ve had enough,’ said Ben, ‘and I
am
taking you home.’

In the end, Amy and Josh had stayed the night at Saffron’s and the women sat up till very late mulling over their respective dilemmas. It was gone midnight when they went to bed, Amy going first, completely exhausted by the events of the day. Saffron had drawn the curtains, and left the bolt off the door. Despite several calls to his mobile, which was switched off, Pete hadn’t responded. Saffron nearly rang Ben to ask if the men were together, but she couldn’t face the questions about Amy. So she too went to bed, where, worn out with worry, she had eventually fallen asleep to the sound of falling rain on the roof. She woke once at 4 a.m., and Pete still wasn’t back. She rang his mobile again, and from the irate drunken response worked out that he was with Ben drinking whisky. At least she knew he wasn’t in a gutter somewhere. She turned over and tried to go to sleep, but lay awake for a long time, wide-eyed and terrified. Pete was going to leave her. She knew it. And there seemed to be nothing she could do.

Ben woke up on his sofa with a stinking head and a dry mouth. He squinted at the table where an empty bottle of whisky was looking accusingly at him. Everything after about midnight, when he and Pete had drunkenly decided that women were the bane of their existence and they were going to pursue a policy of
celibacy and denial for the rest of their natural lives, was a bit of a blur. He had tried to persuade Pete to go home, but having apparently forgotten all about the punch he’d tried to throw Ben’s way, Pete had gone into ‘you’re my best mate’ mode. Ben had vague memories of Pete saying, ‘We have to stick together, mate, through thick and thin. At the end of the day, when the chips are down –’ Ben winced a little here – even in his hung-over haze – at the number of clichés Pete had managed to produce in one short sentence ‘– it’s only your mates you can trust.’

The trouble with only trusting your mates was it tended to lead to appalling hangovers. Ben sat up and rubbed his head. Had all that really happened with Amy yesterday? He wanted to turn the clock back and undo everything they had said to each other.

A muffled snore from the other corner of the room alerted him to the fact that Pete was asleep in a chair. Ben had vague memories of trying to persuade him to phone Saffron, but Pete had been having none of it. Ben sighed. He had thought Saffron and Pete were one of those perfect marriages, they had seemed so right for each other. But then again, maybe there was no such thing as a perfect marriage.

Ben got up gingerly – his head really was thumping – and went to the kitchen to make some coffee. By the time he returned, Pete was awake.

‘Do I look as grim as I feel?’ he asked.

Scanning his beer-soaked shirt, half-open since he’d taken his tie off sometime the previous evening, and his decent trousers muddy from where he had fallen
over several times in the allotments, then moving up to his pale face, complete with bloodshot eyes and wild hair, Ben laughed and said, ‘Grimmer. But I probably look the same.’

‘Remind me never ever to drink elderberry wine again,’ said Pete.

‘You’re the agent of your own misfortune,’ said Ben, ‘and I have no sympathy.’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ protested Pete. ‘The Wine Producers were practically forcing it down my neck.’

‘Hmm,’ said Ben, ‘I didn’t see you saying no.’

There was a pause while they sipped their coffee.

‘So are you going to ring Saffron and tell her where you are?’ Ben asked. ‘She’ll be worried about you.’

‘Worried about me?’ said Pete. ‘Somehow I doubt it.’

‘Don’t you think you may be overreacting just a little bit?’ Ben suggested. ‘You still don’t know her side of the story.’

‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Pete, a stubborn look setting in. Ben knew that look of old, although he hadn’t seen it since they were teenagers. It was a bad sign it was here now.